Legal AF Full Episode - 9/10/2025

25:31Michael Popok:These modern assaults disrupt cellular signaling, negatively impacting gut health and accelerating aging. That's why I've been using Armra Colostrum. Armra Colostrum revives cellular signaling, bolstering our health from within to defend against everyday threats. Colostrum is nature's first whole food with over 400 bioactive nutrients that work at the cellular level to reactivate your body's innate capacity to regenerate and thrive. And since I started taking Armra, I've noticed a real difference. My gut feels stronger and less bloated. My energy and metabolism are better than ever. and even my skin looks more radiant.

26:07Michael Popok:Plus, Armra helps strengthen immune health without just boosting it. It balances and strengthens your immune barriers across your mouth, sinuses, lungs, gut, and more. Ready to reclaim your health? We've worked out a special offer for my audience. Receive 15 % off your first order. Go to tryarmra.com slash legal AF or enter legal AF to get 15 % off your first order. That's T-R-Y-A-R-M-R-A dot com slash legal AF. Armora Colostrum. It's pure, potent, natural, and clean. Not a supplement, but a bioactive whole food. I highly recommend giving it a try. So I went to my 40th high school reunion recently.

26:46Michael Popok:While many of my classmates were excited about retiring or have retired, well, I brought my infant daughter to the reunion and I won the youngest child contest hands down. But that means that when most people's working is winding down to match their body's energy levels, I need to ramp up to keep up with my baby daughter. I believe one of the best aging breakthroughs of the last decade is qualia senolytic. And here's why. Qualia senolytic is at the frontier of what is currently possible in the science of human aging. Senolytics are a science field revolutionizing human aging. A big culprit behind that middle-aged feeling can be senescent cells, aka zombie cells that linger in your body after their useful function, wasting your energy and resources.

27:33Michael Popok:Let me break it down. The accumulation of zombie cells can lead to less energy, slower workout recovery, joint discomfort, and basically, well, feeling old. Qualyacetylytic is a groundbreaking clinically tested supplement with nine vegan plant-derived compounds that help your body naturally eliminate senescent cells, helping you feel years younger in just months. Here's how it works. You take it just two days a month, helping your body naturally eliminate zombie cells to age better at the cellular level. And Qualia's breakthrough formulation is vegan, non-GMO, and tested by leading scientists.

28:11Michael Popok:Since taking Qualia's Senolytic, I felt like I've turned back the clock. I got higher energy, less soreness after exercise, and a big boost in productivity. It's made me feel more youthful and energized as I have the energy level to nurture my baby daughter the right way. Experience the science of feeling younger. Go to qualiolife.com slash Legal AF for up to 50 % off your purchase and use code Legal AF for an additional 15%. That's qualiolife.com slash Legal AF for an extra 15 % off your purchase. Your older self will thank you. And thanks to Qualia for sponsoring this episode. Welcome back to Legal AF at the Midweek, Karen Freeman, McNiflo, and Michael Popok.

28:56Michael Popok:Let's pick up with Lisa Cook, Federal Reserve governor still, had a decision late last night by Gia Cobb, we've been waiting on for about two weeks or so, who found that Donald Trump both violated, likely violated Governor Cook's due process rights, her Fifth Amendment rights, not to be deprived of property, in this case, her employment for 13 years remaining on her term as a member of the seven-member Board of Governors for the Federal Reserve. Due process have been violated, which I knew was coming. I was like, I could tell from the hearing that the due process part bothered her because Donald Trump's DOJ argued that the due process that she got was a mean tweet from Bill Pulte at the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac entities.

29:46Michael Popok:And then five days later, Trump fired her and that that was her due process. The judge is like, sorry, you're not claiming that's due process, right? And they said, yes. And I was like, well, that's a loss. But I wasn't sure about the merits of the for-cause termination, but she found in her own analysis, the judge, for-cause, as that term is used in statutes like this one, the Federal Reserve Act, constitutes what is referred to in the law as IN, like Nancy, M, like Mary, I-N-M, which is inefficiency, neglect of duty, and malfeasance. There's some other things that came in after that, but it has to be in something that you're doing on the job.

30:29Michael Popok:Statutory duties that are not being performed, not being performed well, or things like that. The difference between inefficiency, neglect of duty, and malfeasance, I use this as an example in a hot take. Inefficiency is we give you 20 reports to do, and you do nine of them. That's inefficiency. Neglective duty is we give you 20 reports to do, and you don't do any of them. and malfeasance is we give you 20 reports to do. You do all 20, but they suck. And so that's all about your job. What she's accused of by MAGA and by Bill Pulte and Donald Trump and Pam Bondi is that she committed mortgage fraud, which is really not mortgage fraud.

31:10Michael Popok:She checked the box and got a primary residence loan on two pieces of property, just like 20 % of Donald Trump's cabinet and Bill Pulte's own parents, apparently, according to reporting. Whether that's a crime or not or a misconduct or not, it's certainly not what happened when she was on the Federal Reserve because it happened a year before she was confirmed. And so Judge Cook, sorry, Judge Cobb said, no, that would have been something that would have been known in the public. It should have been part of her confirmation process. And again, it has to be while she's on the job. So she also said in her preliminary injunction ruling that you're not going to win Trump on getting rid of her for cause, and you certainly didn't give her due process.

31:50Michael Popok:She also had some language in there about, I need more briefing on some issues, and I'm not going to give you a stay. So why don't you pick up from what you learned about this issue, and then we'll talk about Stephen Mirren, because they're linked, and the impact on the Federal Reserve and rate setting. Yeah, I mean, this just really, I think, reinforces how important it is for the Federal Reserve to be independent. It's like the country's bank. It's not supposed to be political. This is really about our economy and how everything needs to be apolitical and needs to be what's in the best interest of America and our economy.

32:27And that's why this is treated differently. You can't just fire her politically. You have to have a for cause reason. It has to be something she's doing in her job. And the way the Federal Reserve Board of Governors was created, they have people who are appointed for a set period of time, and it's all staggered. And so different presidents get to nominate and have Senate confirmed different boards, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and he just doesn't like her. And so he wants to have a majority and he's just firing her. He says, you know, this is basically just he doesn't really say why. He just basically says, you know, it's because of the mortgage fraud.

33:13And the judge said, no, for the reasons you said, Popak, has nothing to do with her job. This could have been known to during the Senate confirmation hearings. This was prior to that. If you didn't do your due diligence on her, that's not my problem. And that doesn't count as for cause. I think the most important part about this is the court is safeguarding the independence of the Fed. And I think that that is something that is so critical. It's not like a political entity or political agency, that our nation's economy depends on the Fed being independent. And look, you know, Trump gets very upset about that he can't control the Fed and Jerome Powell and he threatens to fire him.

33:51And, you know, he wants the interest rates lowered. And I think he's bullied them enough that they will lower the interest rates when they meet on September 16th because they're worried about what he'll do. And so it's having an effect, I think, even whether he wins on this or not. But she gets to be at that meeting on the 16th where they have their big two day meeting where they're going to decide what the interest rates are. But I bet they lower them and they'll give an economic justification for it. But I think it's partly they're being bullied by Trump.

34:24Michael Popok:Yeah, that one I disagree with you on. I don't they are going to lower the rates because the bottoms dropped out of the jobs market. We just had a reduction of over a million jobs from the end of Biden to the beginning of Trump. On top of the fact that Trump's economy is not making any new jobs, they're not going to have any choice. Whether they bully, whether he bullied them or not, they were going to have to cut the rates in order to keep this economy from spinning out of complete control and to reach and to regain the bottom. which is the job creation. So the sad reality is he didn't have to bash Lisa Cook to get what he wanted because his poor economy has forced their hand.

35:04Michael Popok:I mean, it was already signaled by Jay Powell at the Jackson Hole conference a month ago, two weeks ago, that he was going to favor a rate cut. That's why the market has been on fire. The stock market has been on fire since then. I mean, today it was ridiculous for a number of other tech techie reasons, including Oracle signing a huge deal that has driven the stock market over the over into magical thinking world in terms of numbers. But I don't think I give more credit to the governors. The way the voting works is this. There's seven voting members of the Board of Governors. Right now, it's four to three, three Trumpers with Mirren likely to swing out of confirmation because he just in record time, moving to Stephen Mirren for a minute.

35:59Michael Popok:He just got confirmed as the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, which is a huge position. In March, he's been on the job for four months. Now, he's been very public about overhauling the Federal Reserve. You can go on YouTube and find him talking about it in 2023 and 2024. Huge critic to the Federal Reserve. but had also been very public about not thinking that the revolving door between the White House and the Federal Reserve was healthy either for its independence. So every time an Obama person went on to the Federal Reserve, having left them, oh, that's just pure politics.

36:36Michael Popok:You can't go from being a political animal to being an independent person. Well, not only is he going from White House position to the Federal Reserve. He's keeping his day job. So he's staying in. He's taking a paid leave, but he's going to return. Why? Because his chair that he's taking over probably by certainly before the 16th in the vote is up in January because he's taking over for somebody whose term was going to be coming up in January. So he gets a stub term. So he wants to be able to go back to his job. But what does that say about the independence of the position? If he's going to stay basically on the payroll, effectively on the payroll, keep his day job at the White House while he's on the Federal Reserve.

37:17Michael Popok:But that will only give them three, Trump three votes, Waller, Bowman, and now this guy. But 12 vote for rates because the Open Markets Committee, the Federal Open Markets Committee is 12. It's the seven on the Board of Governors, plus five from the regional banks, Federal Reserve regional banks. You got to get a majority. So every rate meeting up until this last one was a unanimous vote, including of the Trumpers, to keep rates right where they were. Waller is very public about, who's the Trumper, is very public about being, we have a jobs creation problem. He just thinks the rates need to be dropped now and not worry about inflation.

38:03Michael Popok:Pardon me. So even with Mirren joining, he only has three out of 12 votes for rate cutting. However, if he gets the Lisa Cook out, he then gets the lead four to three. he can start firing presidents of the regional Federal Reserve branches, replace them with Trump lackeys, and then two or three open meetings from now, suddenly he's got the majority of the 12 that vote. But with the economic numbers that I know about, and that I report on every day on Legal AF, and the ones that I don't know about, that only the Federal Reserve has through all of their inputs, there is no doubt they're going to cut rates by a quarter to a half a point on the 16th.

38:50Michael Popok:And if that doesn't work, they're going to cut him again. But I don't think it's because of the, but it'll look like it. It'll look like it's the abuse is working. It's not working. Look, I don't, I hear what you're saying. He fired two people. One of them just decided to resign or take the firing, I should say, and not appeal it. I can't remember what his name was. And then he does Lisa Cook. I just think every one of those people is going to worry about getting fired if they don't vote for that. Even if you're right that it justifies it. You didn't fire another person though. This still, this still puts a, this still, maybe I'm confusing it with something else.

39:30But either way, this completely makes, if I think, makes them all, takes away their independence because they have to worry about their job. So even if they ultimately vote for it, you know, for whatever reason, I do think that they're all going to worry that they could be the next one.

39:46Michael Popok:That's what's great about this show. I think you're confusing it with the FTC where the, where he fired Slaughter and he fired. Yes. I am confusing it with the FTC. I apologize. That's all right. You don't have to apologize. We'll talk about, we'll talk about that too. Cause the Supreme court just ruined 95 years of precedent with Humphrey's executor, because we'll talk about this when we come back from our next break, Rebecca Slaughter tried to get her job back on the FTC. She's the only remaining Democrat. the other Democrat who got fired by Donald Trump decided to take a job that pays. Yes.

40:19Yes. That's what I was thinking of. I apologize. Thank you for correcting me. But I still think with the Federal Reserve, with the way he's been bashing them and the way he fired her, I just think they're all going to, it's just hard to look at it objectively because they're no longer being treated like they're this objective body. They're being bullied.

40:38Michael Popok:Except there's insulators, right? The Federal Reserve regional presidents like Goolsbee that sits in Chicago. It was an Obama White House. His bosses are the Board of Governors. Now, if the Board of Governors switches, he'll get fired. But I don't think that influences, Goolsbee's not going to vote for a rate cut unless he thinks it's appropriate for the economy. He's giving a shit about Donald Trump. But if he gets the, it's the breach of the independence of the Federal Reserve that we're really have to watch closely. Because even Kevin Hassett, who is on the shortlist to be the chairman of the Federal Reserve after Jay Powell's term is over in May, next May, even he has said just recently over the weekend that the independence of the Federal Reserve is sacrosanct.

41:27Michael Popok:And every time a country has violated that and allowed the president or dictator to take over the Federal Reserve and their version of it. It's only led to hyperinflation and consumer misery. Those were his words. So even the Trump, even inside the House of Donald Trump's White House, even they don't believe in Donald Trump's assault on the Federal Reserve. When we come back, we'll talk about a 95-year precedent, which seems to be, if not a life support, it's about over, called Humphrey's executory and why it matters. We'll also talk about the FBI agents who have turned around and sued today, the Trump administration and the FBI for having lost their jobs, for doing nothing more than doing their job, which is to investigate Jan 6th insurrectionists and Donald Trump himself and those around him, leading to indictments and criminal convictions and sentencings, just doing their job.

42:18Michael Popok:What were they supposed to do? Turn their back on their job and just say, well, you know, that was interesting, the 1 ,600 people that attacked the Capitol. But what else can we go after today? It was totally ridiculous. And they got a very fine lawyer in Abby Lowell to handle that. But we're going to take our next and last break for the podcast. We've got amazing sponsors that Jordi Micellis puts together for us. He curates it, handles that side of the world. We check out the products and we decide what we're going to sponsor and what we're going to allow to be sponsoring us. And we enjoy all of these sponsors and all of these products.

42:53Michael Popok:So if you have some disposable income, I know it's getting tougher with Donald Trump. But if you do and you think this is something you're interested in, we encourage you to do it. And the other way to support us, which you have, I mean, I don't want to act like you haven't supported us. There's a reason where we bounce between top 15 and top 40 of all YouTube podcasts. It's because of you. Top 50 in all audio podcasts for news because of you. And the other ways to support us besides watching us, which is super important, is leaving a five-star review for the podcast. Leaving comments there. We do that.

43:26Michael Popok:If you watch us here on YouTube, listen to us on audio podcast platforms and vice versa. Go back and forth. Let friends know about us so we can organically grow. And then we've got the ecosystem around Legal AF, the Legal AF YouTube channel, Legal AF MTN, which recognizes our relationship with the Midas Touch Network, which I curate 10 videos a day or more. One-stop shopping. We've got the podcast. Everything is sort of there for you there. there. So come over to Legal AF MTN. And then we've got Legal AF, the sub stack, which also gives us that immediacy, that urgent place to be where I can pull together along with others, a immediate huddle to talk about issues.

44:08Michael Popok:I just did two today. We got almost 3 ,000 people apiece to talk about cutting edge issues that are just happening in real time, along with other written reporting and other great content. So come over there, become a member and think about becoming a paid member. And that's what keeps everything kind of rolling along here in Legal AF world. So now here's a word from our sponsors. You ever notice the signs of getting older, creeping in? Poor sleep, low energy, maybe a little brain fog or stiffness that didn't used to be there. Same here. And healthy aging is something I've been thinking about more than ever.

44:46Michael Popok:That's why I'm so excited to share with you guys C15 from Fatty15, the first emerging essential fatty acid to be discovered in more than 90 years. It is an incredible scientific breakthrough to support our long-term health and wellness, and you guessed it, healthy aging. Fatty 15 co-founder Dr. Stephanie Van Watson, she discovered C15 while working with the U.S. Navy on aging dolphins. Over 100 studies now show that C15 strengthens our cells and helps slow biological aging at the cellular level. When our cells don't have enough C15, they become fragile and age faster. That's called cellular fragility syndrome.

45:24Michael Popok:The first new nutritional deficiency in 75 years, one in three people worldwide may have it. Fatty 15 is a science-backed, award-winning, patented, 100 % pure C15 supplement that repairs cellular damage, boosts sleep and brain health, and helps your body feel younger from the inside out. I've been taking Fatty 15 for a few months now, and I really started noticing deeper sleep and more energy throughout the day. I wasn't expecting much at first, but I've actually seen a difference. And that's saying a lot when most supplements don't deliver. And it comes in a beautiful, reusable jar with easy refills sent right to your door.

46:01Michael Popok:Fatty15 is on a mission to optimize your C15 levels to help support your long-term health and wellness, especially as you age. You can get an additional 15 % off their 90-day subscription starter kit by going to fatty15.com slash legal AF and using code legal AF at checkout. In business, they say you can have better, cheaper, or faster, but you only get to pick two. What if you could have all three at the same time? That's exactly what Cohere, Thomson Reuters, and Specialized Bikes have since they upgraded to the next generation of the cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. OCI is the blazing fast platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs, where you can run any workload in a high availability, consistently high performance environment and spend less than you would with other clouds.

46:53Michael Popok:How is it faster? OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second. Cheaper, OCI costs up to 50 % less for compute, 70 % less for storage and 80 % less for networking. Better in test after test, OCI customers report lower latency and higher bandwidth versus other clouds. This is the cloud built for AI and all your biggest workloads. Right now with zero commitment, try OCI for free. Head to oracle.com slash legal AF. That's oracle.com slash legal AF. Welcome back. Thank you for being a fervent supporter of what we do here on Legal AF. So Karen, why don't you take the Humphreys Executor 95-year-old precedent and what looks like it's about to happen with a case involving Ms.

47:44Michael Popok:Slaughter, Rebecca Slaughter, the only Democrat who was on the Federal Trade Commission, which was actually the commission that Humphreys was on in 1935, and got fired without cause by Donald Trump, leaving it in complete control of Republicans in that very important regulatory commission. But we had an emergency docket decision by the United States Supreme Court. Why don't you take it from there? Yeah, look, there's this case that developed this body of law post Humphrey's executor. As you said, it's a very old law. And the Supreme Court has been chipping away at that. But for a very long time, it's been on life support.

48:28Many legal commentators have thought that it's going to be overruled. This was a Supreme Court decision in 1935, Humphrey's executor versus the United States, which upheld a federal law that only allows the FTC commissioners to be removed for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office, like you just said about the Fed, about Lisa Cook. And so this is the thing that's interesting about Slaughter, who is on the FTC. That's what Humphrey's executor was about. That was about an FTC commissioner. And when Trump fired her and the other guy that I confused, his name was Alvaro Bedoya, who was also fired.

49:15He decided not to continue and appeal it, but Slaughter did. He basically said that he didn't try to make any bones about it, didn't say anything about what they did. They just said, look, your views are inconsistent with the Trump administration and Trump priorities. And that seems to be directly in violation of Humphrey's executor. And when the Supreme Court pressed pause or essentially allowed this to happen because the lower court said, no, Humphrey's executor applies. You can't fire her unless it's for one of those reasons. But, you know, and of course, Trump didn't even pretend that it was for one of those reasons.

50:02He just said, I'm doing it because I want to for political reasons. The Supreme Court, by allowing the firing to happen, is essentially saying Humphrey's executor no longer applies. And they haven't overruled it yet, but I think they're going to. I think it's clear that they're going to.

50:19Michael Popok:Oh, yeah, they're getting rid of Humphrey's executor. It's been on life support for quite some time. But the only agency or commission that they apparently are not going to allow Donald Trump to fire without for cause is going to be the Federal Reserve, only because they said so in May in the Wilcox case involving the National Labor Relations Board. Went out of their way in a decision not about the Federal Reserve to say the Federal Reserve was different. And so I think there, that's why Lisa Cook, back to the top of our show, has a very good shot at staying in office. It just has to do now with how they define for cause, which is different than the Humphreys executor thing, which was about whether you can fire somebody for cause or not without answering the question of what for cause was.

51:03Michael Popok:So that's where we are with the death of a 95-year-old president under this administration, under this Supreme Court. Let's touch base on, let's update our audience on what's going on with all things Epstein. we've got the Donald Trump goes after in July, the wall street journal, because they described, but didn't publish a photo or a image of what Donald Trump's birthday submission was for a leather bound multi-volume scrapbook, 50th birthday card that Ghislaine Maxwell admits that she put together. Everybody, and there's hundreds of pages in this birthday submission, a birthday book, book. Nobody in it has said that their submission, which has now been made public, it's up on Legal AF Substack.

51:57Michael Popok:You can find it. You can click through it yourself. All the jokey, pornographic pictures and drawings and jokes, which basically confirmed that everybody knew that Epstein was abusing or liked girls. It's disgusting. I mean, not women, girls. There's enough references There's actually one cartoon that somebody hand drew of showing Epstein handing out balloons at like an elementary school to little girls. And then the next frame in the cartoon was him being pampered and Lord knows what else by girls. Like things don't change. You were. OK, so there's lots of that in the book. So Donald Trump is least among the problems in there.

52:47Michael Popok:He's also buried on a page 158 of one of the volumes. He wasn't even like it wasn't even like the top bill in the book. And now he claims that even though The Wall Street Journal accurately described every aspect of this, he then said it's a fraud. It's a forgery. Never answers the question. Who who would 30 years ago, who would forge something and then plant it in there so that it would come back 30 years later to to tear down Donald Trump's administration? Who? Who set a plot in motion 30 years ago and took a Sharpie pen and made an almost perfect replica of Donald Trump's signature and used his language and vernacular for an obscene recognition that his friend is probably a child predator, respectively, what the language in there suggests?

53:36Michael Popok:Who would do that? Oh, they never have an answer for that. It's just a whole bunch of people, amateur handwriting analysts who are looking at the wrong example of his handwriting. They're looking at the Donald J. Trump official one, not the Donald personal one that he uses on things like letters to Hillary Clinton. I just had a live substack today with Adam Parkomenko and learned something new. He's the one that supplied to the Wall Street Journal the letter to George Conway from Donald Trump signed Donald that they use as an exemplar. So this whole thing about Donald Trump has been the victim of a forgery going back 30 years pasted into a book is all bullshit and has only ramped up along.

54:23Michael Popok:We bookended it with the victims, survivors last week at Capitol Hill. We've got the discharge petition, which is oh so achingly close to 218 signatures to take the vote to the House floor, to have the House order the Department of Justice to turn over everything with Republicans, including Marjorie Taylor Greene. I almost vomit a little in my mouth when I mention her. And Nancy Mace, too. And Lauren Boebert. And Lauren Boebert joining together to sign the petition because they're all apparently victims of sexual abuse in their past. I know Nancy Macy's come out and said she was a rape victim when she was 14.

55:03Michael Popok:But whatever it is, it's getting up to the 218. There's two special election Democrats that are likely coming in. One's definitely and another one. We might be at the 218 while Schumer's bill at the Senate looks like it just got shot down while we were on the air. What do you make of it from you? You've prosecuted crimes like this. What do you make of Donald Trump's efforts to cover up this, his involvement with with Elliot, with Elliot, with Jeffrey Epstein to the point where I'll leave you on this, Karen, where his administration has threatened Republicans that if they sign the discharge petition to allow that bill to be voted on the House floor, It will be considered to be a hostile act, an act of war by Donald Trump.

55:52Michael Popok:What do you make of all that? I mean, this is just beyond horrific. You know, those survivors who gave that press conference, the way they framed it, and I think it's the way we need to look at this, is Jeffrey Epstein. Everyone talks about the list and who are all the people on the list. Really what they mean and what they're talking about is who are all the enablers? Who enabled Jeffrey Epstein to be able to abuse and sexually assault so many girls, so many young girls, and do it for so long in plain view in front of everybody? And when you look at this birthday book, it's, I think, 238 pages.

56:31And as you said, it was created decades ago for him. It's all about who Jeffrey Epstein is. It's all about it's very rapey and gross and pedophile. Like it's so disturbing. Those are his enablers. Those are all people who not only knew it was happening, some participated in it, but also joked around about it and allowed this to happen and participated in this horrible, horrible thing. And I think when you see Donald Trump, he could have done anything for this birthday book. He could have chosen, I mean, it's a distraction to try to do handwriting comparisons. There's no doubt, as you said, that this is Donald Trump.

57:15No doubt that he did this. It's, you can do word, people have done word comparison. Those are words that he used that they've done. He's known to draw pictures for people. He's even auctioned them off. And clearly that's his signature. And there's no doubt they were close friends. And what's the subject matter that Donald Trump chose to put in that birthday book? He chose to essentially acknowledge because he has this outline of a woman's body, probably a young girl's body with, you can see breasts and really suggestive words and signs his name is signature in her pubic area. I mean, it's disgusting.

57:56If that doesn't, if that's not exhibit A, that he was part of all of this and knew of all of it. And the fact that he's fighting so hard that he's threatening members of Congress, that if you vote to release this stuff, I take this as an act of aggression. As a prosecutor, we would call that consciousness of guilt because he is absolutely, if he had nothing to hide and nothing to worry about, he would say, release it all, get it all out there. But it's not. And I think that it is, that is even more proof. And honestly, I have to say, I give Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace credit for standing up for what's right here.

58:38I do.

58:38Michael Popok:Yeah, they're disgusting in every, they're disgusting in every other way, but they are. I definitely don't agree with anything they normally say, but I give them credit for standing up for what's right here. It does be on, sorry, I don't mean to keep going. No, no, I mean, it shows they're actually human beings, not just... Barely, barely. Nancy Mace is disgusting, the way she's going. I agree, I agree. I know, it's disgusting, but I still give, at least, I give them credit for at least standing up for what they believe in. Yeah, sometimes she believes in things that are absolutely disgusting, but here, you know, she's not being cowed.

59:14They are doing what's right instead of doing what the dictator wants. And so I think that's a good thing.

59:21Michael Popok:Well, it's all getting under Donald Trump's skin. He had an interaction at Joe's Stonecrab, which actually, no, I went with my wife when we were in Washington. But he was going out for a big fat cat, white male only dinner at Joe's Stonecrab in D.C. and a group of resistors found out about it. That's a good thing. And they showed up and started chanting against Donald Trump, calling him Hitler. He didn't like it. And there's some great video of it that's up on the Midas Touch Network about it. It just shows you how weak he is, how unserious he is, and what the resistance is supposed to look like.

1:00:04Michael Popok:Just to update the story that we led off with, just to touch on it, the FBI is reporting that they do have in custody now the person that they believe was the suspect who shot and killed, apparently, Charlie Kirk. So I did want to bring that to everybody's attention because it was a little unclear whether he was in custody or he's not in custody. It looks like he is in custody. We don't have any further details, but, of course, they'll be developed over the next 24 to 48 hours. Let's do two quick stories as we wrap up here in the homestretch. One is about the Library of Congress and Donald Trump losing today related to his attempt to take over the Library of Congress, which by very definition is in the congressional branch, the legislative branch.

1:00:50Michael Popok:You can't fire somebody that doesn't work for you. We'll talk about that. And then the FBI agents suing to get their jobs back and reinstatement. You want to take the FBI agents, Karen? Sure. All right. Why don't you take that first? So, look, three former FBI agents were fired by by Kash Patel and they're suing him and Trump saying their terminations were part of this White House directed bullying purge from MAGA loyalists. Because apparently there's these social media MAGA people who were putting out a lot of information about these three FBI agents. And it looks like that's why the White House directed Kash Patel to fire these really highly respected agents.

1:01:37One was named Brian Driscoll, who was the former acting FBI director for a month. Seemed to be an accident or a mistake that he was the FBI director. but he was highly respected. Also, Steven Jansen, who was the assistant director in charge of the Washington office, and another agent, Spencer Evans, who led the Las Vegas office. And they basically said, look, this was all political. You politicized the FBI, and you're prioritizing politics over the American people. So they filed lawsuits in Washington, and they basically said, that their firing should be declared illegal. They want to be reinstated.

1:02:22You know, they want to come back with back pay, all of that. And they gave the, what was interesting about their complaint is they gave firsthand accounts about how tumultuous and how political the Patel driven FBI is under this white house. And, you know, they're doing things like having to, they, they, They told Driscoll to fire anyone identified as having worked on a criminal investigation against Trump. And meanwhile, if you remember, during his Senate confirmation, Kash Patel was asked if he would fire anyone based on cases that they worked on. And he said no. But yet he wanted to fire all these people who had anything to do with any investigation into Trump, whether it's Mar-a-Lago, the other, you know, the Jan 6 case.

1:03:18And so that's, you know, basically why they were fired and they're trying to get their job back. I mean, these are highly decorated, highly respected agents who were fired just because they wouldn't, you know, they don't carry the party line. And apparently, again, like what I was saying was these MAGA conservative people were aggressively posting on Patel and Bongino's social media calling for their firing and retribution. And they think that's what's behind this. And, you know, it's it's well, and I think one of them was fired because of because he had he wouldn't he fired some he wouldn't fire someone.

1:04:01It had to do with COVID and COVID restrictions. And, you know, these are just like, again, these are old grudges and that that they're taking out on these on these FBI agents. So it'll be very interesting to see how that goes.

1:04:15Michael Popok:Yeah, let's turn to, well, we got another minute. Let's turn to the Library of Congress. Library of Congress established in the early 1800s to serve as a research arm for Congress and doing its legislative work, what laws it should pass. And kind of inside the Library of Congress is the copyright division, if you will, and the Register of Copyrights, who is the person responsible for copyrights. Copyrights being the way that we protect inventors and artistic creators or writers. Anything that's kind of written, digital, music, art, all has some sort of copyright, a machine, anything that you invent.

1:04:59Michael Popok:not trademark, not what something looks like or a logo or what a bottle looks like in terms of a merchandise. We're talking about the actual creative engine and how it's protected so that people can monetize it and be paid for it if somebody else uses it. It's an important position, but it sits over in the legislative branch and Donald Trump has tried to take over. I mean, it is the Library of Congress. That's what I said at the start. It's in the title. So you can't fire somebody that doesn't work for you. Now, two of the judges, and this was a two-to-one decision, that the register, Shira Perlmutter, who is responsible for all copyright issues, including everything under her, she can only be fired by the Librarian of Congress.

1:05:48Michael Popok:The librarian of Congress was fired by Donald Trump, and it was not really, I don't know what she did about it. And they tried to replace her with Todd Blanche, of all things. He's the guy that did Ghislaine Maxwell's interview, and he's the number two in the Department of Justice and Donald Trump's former criminal defense lawyer. But according to the new ruling by Judge Pan and Judge Childs, two to one against Judge Walker, a Trumper, they said that they have evidence that nobody is respecting Todd Blanche, that he's not really acting as the as the librarian of the librarian of Congress. And that even though Shira Perlmutter got fired and didn't get reinstated by the trial court judge, she's been showing up every day and just doing her job like office space.

1:06:37Michael Popok:So she's actually, even though she's getting paid, but she took her job so seriously, she just kept showing up to work even though she got canned. And what the panel said, two to one, is this. This is a legislative branch. It can't be interfered with by the president of the United States. This is what they use for their legislative duties to make law and the research body behind that. Copyright sits here because our framers said it sits here. And Walker, in his dissent, said a version of, no, it's quasi-executive. And I was like, I got to read this. Why? Because here's all the executive powers that they operate under.

1:07:21Michael Popok:They issue copyrights. There's a copyright judge. There's royalties that are collected. I'm like, okay, let me get this straight. I agree with you that if Congress creates a statute, that you must faithfully execute that statute on the executive branch side. That doesn't mean that Congress can't keep for itself as part of his legislative acts the ability to supervise or implement its own copyright law. That doesn't mean it always has to go over to the president. There's no separation of powers issue there, not when it comes to the Library of Congress because it's such a unique institution in our nation's history.

1:08:02Michael Popok:Donald Trump hates it. He wants to control everything, whether he owns it or not. And so when he fired her, she eventually took an appeal. But the two-to-one decision of the appellate panel, Michelle Childs, Judge Pan, with Walker in dissent, what they said is, we are going to enjoin and we're going to put her back in her position or keep her in her position. Walker's response was, you're violating Humphrey's executor all over again. And you're violating prior rulings of the Supreme Court about other people who were fired by the executive by the president. But the difference, they say, is this is the legislative branch and a unique quality about the library of Congress that isn't the same as these other agencies created by Congress and turned over to the president.

1:08:50Michael Popok:But we're going to have to see, Karen, what do you think is going to happen at the Supreme Court? Because, you know, the D.C. Court of Appeals, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has been overturned a couple of times. Yeah, exactly. I mean, let's see, because they seem to want to create this unitary executive. So let's see what they ultimately rule. It's so odd. I can't even predict anymore what they're going to do. Why didn't the librarian of Congress, why did she step aside? She went and got another job. She went into an institute. She was the first African-American head of the Library of Congress.

1:09:25Michael Popok:But Donald Trump loves doing that. He fired all of the black women generals and colonels. He got rid of all them. Got rid of the first black woman head of the National Labor Relations Board, Gwen Wilcox. And got rid of the first black woman librarian. You know, and that's why, you know, let's face it. You know, look at his interns, all white, fresh faces. The dinner that just got busted by the opposition group that was chanting Hitler was all, you know, white, old guys in suits. This is Trump's America as we chase black and brown people through in an inhumane way. We didn't even touch on it here, and I'll do it.

1:10:12Michael Popok:I've done it on a hot take. 40 ,000 migrants have been disappeared within the United States through a shell game of shuttling them to 10 and 12 different immigration detention centers so that ICE can't even keep track of them, let alone their lawyers, let alone their family, on the way either to a third country or just getting lost in the system on purpose here in America while they're in now taken out of blue states and sent to red states for red judges. And this is not okay. This is a new leak that got made to The Guardian that just did a great piece today about it, and I did a hot take about it.

1:10:50Michael Popok:But this is the Trump America that we live in, you know, including the things that we talked about at the top of the show. But I'm glad that everybody is here with us. Karen and I really appreciate your fervent support for what we do. It's what motivates us every day to get up and do what we do. You know how to support us. You're here already. Audio versions of Legal AF, download those. Leave comments and five-star reviews. Watch us, listen to us back and forth. Legal AF sub-stack, become a member there. You'll get amazing content from 12 different contributors, three different podcasts, all at the intersection of law and politics that I curate for you.

1:11:29Michael Popok:First four videos every day is usually mine, and then we bring in the other contributors. And then Legal AF Substack. Wait till you see Substack and all the live reporting there. I've got one up right now right before we started the show tonight. I did it with Adam Parkomenko. I think you're going to find that fascinating as well. Popak, can I just say one last thing before I say goodbye? Sure. Um, this is a very, cause this is a very somber day, uh, coming up tomorrow. This is the night before September 11th. And it's always, you know, I live in New York. I live across the street from, uh, ground zero.

1:12:05I was there with my family when it happened and it was, I can't believe it was 24 years ago, but I want to acknowledge that this, that tomorrow is September 11th. And it is really the day for me, at least, and for many people that the world changed, that everything changed. And so many people lost their lives. So many other people lost the ability to feel safe. And it's just something that we can never forget. And I just want to acknowledge it just because it's the night before. And I always remember what I did the night before 9-11. And it's just something that I want to acknowledge for all the people who feel the way I do, which I know is most of America, that on this incredibly somber day, just want to acknowledge it.

1:13:00Michael Popok:And look, people know that I worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, who lost 658 people in the blink of an eye, including Howard Lutnick's brother, including my boss's entire legal and compliance team. Thank God you weren't there. Well, I came in after the rebuild, after they rebuilt it. And you can say what you want about Howard Lutnick, and Lord knows I have. But in terms of the rebuild of the company and the support of the survivors and their families. But I lived in an organization where every day we celebrated 9-11. We talked about 9-11 every day and the results of it. I was there for every day. Cantor Fitzgerald does a 9-11 charity day where they bring in celebrities to raise money for charity and give out 15 or 20 million dollars a day.

1:13:43Michael Popok:So, again, people know I'm a harsh critic of the Commerce Secretary. But when it comes to 9-11, I totally agree with you. Thank you for telling us all about that. So as we as as we sign off here, Wednesday's Karen Freeman, Ignifolo and me. Saturday's Ben, Mycelis and me on Legal AF. And, you know, the different ways to support us. So until our next show, it's Michael Popak, Karen Freeman, Ignifolo. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the League of Layouters.

1:14:32Michael Popok:Once. Okay, that's fair. It's like the lottery, except you always win. Not like the lottery at all, actually. Exactly. Inexplicably good. Offers worth bragging about. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for$15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made$15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12-month plan required.

1:15:12$15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. See terms. Tired of your car insurance rate going up, even with a clean driving record? You're not alone. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant. Jerry compares rates side-by-side from over 50 top insurers and helps you switch with ease. Jerry even tracks market rates and alerts you when it's best to shop. No spam calls, no hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over$1 ,300 a year. Switch with confidence. Download the Jerry app or visit jerry.ai.libsyn today.

1:15:48That's jerry.ai.libsyn.

1:15:52Michael Popok:If you love this episode, make sure you're subscribed to the Intersection Audio Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. It's my solo ride, and we release new episodes daily, all completely free.